Clouds for Scorching Days

  • June 26, 2024
  • /
  • Erin Newton

Scripture Focus: Isaiah 25.4-5
4 You have been a refuge for the poor,
     a refuge for the needy in their distress,
 a shelter from the storm
     and a shade from the heat.
 For the breath of the ruthless
     is like a storm driving against a wall
 5     and like the heat of the desert.
 You silence the uproar of foreigners;
     as heat is reduced by the shadow of a cloud,
     so the song of the ruthless is stilled.

Reflection: Clouds for Scorching Days
By Erin Newton

Summers in Texas are like sticking your face in an oven. July and August are our prime summer heat waves where the sun immediately bakes your skin.

Years ago, I spent a few weeks in Venezuela during a particularly warm summer. The heat radiated in the cloudless sky. I remember praying, “Dear God, send a cloud.” Intense heat can bring out the simplest of prayers.

Isaiah compares the suffering of the poor and needy to those who suffer under the scorching heat of the sun or the abrasive torrents of a storm. The “ruthless” beat against them like “a storm driving against a wall.”

It is a picture of oppression that is inescapable, too powerful to overcome, sapping all energy and life. People fight against the winds of the storm to no avail. It pushes them back against a wall. I imagine scenes of people desperately clinging to branches as the wind threatens to carry them away. I imagine scenes of sojourners in the desert, lips cracked and yearning for a drop of water. Isaiah shows the poor and needy in the deepest pit of their despair.

But God is their refuge. He is the “shelter from the storm” and the “shade from the heat.” Notice the rescue from God is not plucking them from this earth. They are not removed from living in the world. They are not suddenly transported to a paradise where nothing bad happens. They continue living in a world where oppression, persecution, and suffering threaten their existence.  
God provides a respite for their suffering. Within the dome of scorching heat—God sends a cloud. Under the deafening roar of the storm—God blunts the shrill winds.

Why do you think God does not eliminate the threat completely? I wish he would. I have been in the storm, and I have endured the blaze of suffering. Trials of great intensity wear down our energy physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Under the clamor of life’s storms, we barely utter a prayer, “Dear God, help me.”

God sends us clouds and calms the winds. He is our refuge in life—but refuges are just temporary inns for respite. I want a permanent abode, far away.

“He will swallow up death forever. The Sovereign Lord will wipe away the tears from all faces.”

Clouds and calm do we have now. Tearless eyes and eternal life shall we gain in Him.


Divine Hours Prayer: The Refrain for the Morning Lessons
Protect my life and deliver me; let me not be put to shame, for I have trusted in you. — Psalm 25.19


– From The Divine Hours: Prayers for Summertime by Phyllis Tickle.


​Today’s Readings
Isaiah 25 (Listen 1:59)
Acts 12 (Listen 3:49)

Read more about The Broken Power of Death
Death is not the worst thing that can happen to us and it does not have the final word in our lives but that does not mean we should not grieve it.

The Broken Power of Death

Read more about Supporting Our Work
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Supporting our Work

The Broken Power of Death

  • April 12, 2024
  • /
  • John Tillman

Scripture Focus: Hosea 13.14
14 “I will deliver this people from the power of the grave; 
I will redeem them from death. 
Where, O death, are your plagues? 
Where, O grave, is your destruction? 

Psalm 146.3-5
3 Do not put your trust in princes, 
in human beings, who cannot save. 
4 When their spirit departs, they return to the ground; 
on that very day their plans come to nothing. 
5 Blessed are those whose help is the God of Jacob, 
whose hope is in the Lord their God. 

Isaiah 25.8
8 he will swallow up death forever. The Sovereign LORD will wipe away the tears from all faces; he will remove his people’s disgrace from all the earth. The LORD has spoken. 

1 Corinthians 15.54-56
54 When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.” 

     55 “Where, O death, is your victory?
         Where, O death, is your sting?” 

56 The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. 57 But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.


Reflection: The Broken Power of Death
By John Tillman

Hosea and Isaiah’s ministries overlapped and their writing echoes each other. Paul paraphrases their promises of resurrection into one of his brightest, most hopeful refrains. This chorus of hope comes most directly from one of the darkest chapters of Hosea.

Rather than rely upon God, Israel and Judah had turned to political alliances and the gods those allies worshiped. But these “princes” would soon commit atrocities. These sound eerily familiar to ones committed by today’s powerful countries who bomb maternity wards and civilian evacuation corridors.

Death is not only dispensed at the whim of greedy empires but is carried on the wings of disease and aging. What hope can we have against death? This question is common to the people of Israel and Judah in Isaiah and Hosea’s day, to downtrodden outcasts under Rome’s rule, and to those targeted by empires and dictators today.

The poor and the powerless are overrun by death. They have no defenses and little strength to resist or slow its advance. They are helpless.

Wealth and power do much to extend life. The wealthy can easily flee conflict and the powerful are welcomed to new countries rather than crammed into inhumane camps. Experimental and expensive life-saving and life-extending medical treatments are common among the powerful. Absent these extreme examples, even simple, quality of life differences add years to the lives of the wealthy. However, in the end, the rich, the powerful, and the poor all die. The teacher of Ecclesiastes would call these efforts meaningless or absurd. (Ecclesiastes 3:19)

To the unbelieving world, for whom mortal life is all there is, death is ultimate. It is the worst thing that can happen to a person and there is no remedy.

Death is not the worst thing that can happen to us and it does not have the final word in our lives but that does not mean we should not grieve it. Lazarus was only four days in the grave, yet Jesus wept. (John 11.35) We weep and mourn death, but not without hope. (1 Thessalonians 4.13)

While we flee or delay death, scripture describes death’s defeat. God promises the grave will not be our final destination. We will only pass through and when we leave, we will be led by Christ himself. For those in Christ, death is a toothless predator, a limbless wrestler, who cannot hold us down for long.

Death which swallows all, will be swallowed up.

Divine Hours Prayer: The Greeting
You are the Lord, most high over all the earth; you are exalted far above all gods. — Psalm 97.9

– From The Divine Hours: Prayers for Summertime by Phyllis Tickle.


​Today’s Readings
Hosea 13 (Listen 2:26)
Matthew 16 (Listen 3:43)

This Weekend’s Readings
Hosea 14 (Listen 1:39), Matthew 17 (Listen 3:46)
Joel 1 (Listen 2:59), Matthew 18 (Listen 4:25)

Listen to Too Much to Hold on the Pause to Read podcast
In Christ, we’re made to be like him
Too much for Death to hold

Read more about Stealing Death’s Sting
Untie our grave clothes and strip us of the trappings of this world.
Let us walk into the light and follow your loving voice.

Stealing Death’s Sting

The Broken Power of Death

  • April 12, 2022
  • /
  • John Tillman

Scripture Focus: Hosea 13.14
14 “I will deliver this people from the power of the grave; 
I will redeem them from death. 
Where, O death, are your plagues? 
Where, O grave, is your destruction? 

Psalm 146.3-5
3 Do not put your trust in princes, 
in human beings, who cannot save. 
4 When their spirit departs, they return to the ground; 
on that very day their plans come to nothing. 
5 Blessed are those whose help is the God of Jacob, 
whose hope is in the Lord their God. 

Isaiah 25.8
8 he will swallow up death forever. The Sovereign LORD will wipe away the tears from all faces; he will remove his people’s disgrace from all the earth. The LORD has spoken. 

1 Corinthians 15.54-56
54 When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.” 

     55 “Where, O death, is your victory?
         Where, O death, is your sting?” 

56 The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. 57 But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Reflection: The Broken Power of Death
By John Tillman

Hosea and Isaiah’s ministries overlapped and their writing echoes each other. Paul paraphrases their promises of resurrection into one of his brightest, most hopeful refrains. This chorus of hope comes most directly from one of the darkest chapters of Hosea.

Rather than rely upon God, Israel and Judah had turned to political alliances and the gods those allies worshiped. But these “princes” would soon commit atrocities. These sound eerily familiar to ones committed by today’s powerful countries who bomb maternity wards and civilian evacuation corridors.

Death is not only dispensed at the whim of greedy empires but is carried on the wings of disease and aging. What hope can we have against death? This question is common to the people of Israel and Judah in Isaiah and Hosea’s day, to downtrodden outcasts under Rome’s rule, and to those targeted by empires and dictators today.

The poor and the powerless are overrun by death. They have no defenses and little strength to resist or slow its advance. They are helpless.

Wealth and power do much to extend life. The wealthy can easily flee conflict and the powerful are welcomed to new countries rather than crammed into inhumane camps. Experimental and expensive life-saving and life-extending medical treatments are common among the powerful. Absent these extreme examples, even simple, quality of life differences add years to the lives of the wealthy. However, in the end, the rich, the powerful, and the poor all die. The teacher of Ecclesiastes would call these efforts meaningless or absurd. (Ecclesiastes 3:19)

To the unbelieving world, for whom mortal life is all there is, death is ultimate. It is the worst thing that can happen to a person and there is no remedy.

Death is not the worst thing that can happen to us and it does not have the final word in our lives but that does not mean we should not grieve it. Lazarus was only four days in the grave, yet Jesus wept. (John 11.35) We weep and mourn death, but not without hope. (1 Thessalonians 4.13)

While we flee or delay death, scripture describes death’s defeat. God promises the grave will not be our final destination. We will only pass through and when we leave, we will be led by Christ himself. For those in Christ, death is a toothless predator, a limbless wrestler, who cannot hold us down for long.

Death which swallows all, will be swallowed up.

Divine Hours Prayer: The Short Verse
“I am the Alpha and the Omega” says the Lord God, “who is, who was, and who is to come, the Almighty.” — Revelation 1.8

Today’s Readings
Hosea 13  Listen – 2:26)
Psalm 146-147  (Listen -3:09)

Read more about Too Much to Hold
In Christ, we’re made to be like him
Too much for Death to hold
Grasped by him for a moment
But he cannot hold our souls

Too Much to Hold

Read more about Stealing Death’s Sting
Untie our grave clothes and strip us of the trappings of this world.
Let us walk into the light and follow your loving voice.

Stealing Death’s Sting